page_title: Days Bay
section_title: Property developers
hierarchical_section_title: Days Bay / Destination resort / Property developers
caption_attribution_description: Kereru at Day's Bay
context_page_description: Days Bay is a residential area in Lower Hutt in the Wellington Region of the North Island of New Zealand. It is walled on three sides by steep bush-clad slopes. Most of its level land is occupied by Williams Park and an independent boys' primary school, originally a part of Williams Park.
  Wellington shipowner, J H Williams, bought land in Days Bay near the end of the 19th century to create custom for his smaller vessels, building a wharf and turning the bay into a sports and resort development for day-trippers and holiday-makers. Williams sold his interest in 1905 and the new owners split off building sites on unneeded land. The Eastbourne Borough Council bought the ferries in 1913 and the accommodation, Days Bay House, was sold to Wellington's Croydon School. The following year the Wellington City Council with central government support and public subscription bought the resort for the benefit of the public though without its accommodation and, in view of the large cash contribution by the founder's mother, named it Williams Park.
context_section_description: Then after seven more good years Williams became concerned that in 1909, only four years away, his lease of his Day's Bay wharf would expire. He had put ten successful years work into Day's Bay. The Evening Post reported about 4000 had visited Days Bay on Anniversary Day 1905. His real pleasure was in running his resort and finding extra work for his commercial vessels in their slack times. By 1905 there was less commercial work available. The Union Company had bought two tugs for its own operations and there were other smaller competitors. A wharf had been built at Rona Bay and building sites were being sold. The usual civic institutions were beginning to take root in the neighbourhood, initially an unelected group calling themselves The Day's Bay Ratepayers Association. Properly constituted they would see a useful tax source in his business and in any case he did not want to run a scheduled commuter ferry service to please permanent residents.
  Williams had successfully floated Wellington Steam Ferry Company Limited in 1900, a public listed company, and put his own business into its ownership. That way he raised enough extra capital to improve and expand the resort's facilities and acquire another ferry. He now put his share of Wellington Steam Ferry and its 226 acres of Day's Bay up for sale and in August 1905 it was bought by a syndicate led by William Watson of the Bank of New Zealand. Wellington Steam Ferry became a subsidiary of Watson's newly formed Wellington Harbour Ferries Limited.
  Within a month an auction of 66 building sites was advertised. It seemed all Wellington protested. Harold Beauchamp, father of Katherine Mansfield appealed to the Premier, Richard Seddon, for the Government to acquire Days Bay and proclaim it a National Park "for all time". He suggested maintenance costs then would be funded by the rents from the accommodation house and pavilion and an agreed portion of the ferry company's fares.  No government help was forthcoming.
  After the uproar abated the auction went ahead. Wellington Harbour Ferries found revenue enough to maintain the ferry service but wanted the profits from more subdivision in Day's  Bay. Its focus became property development, it had a ferry service to make the properties attractive. It lost Miramar business when trams arrived and, as expected by Williams, Harbour Board and Eastbourne Borough Council both pushed up wharf rentals. Duco was sent to the Chathams to fish and earn cash but disappeared with all hands. The Council would not buy the bush-clad slopes for a reserve. The Council demanded they be allowed to buy the ferries.
caption: Kereru in Day's Bay, 2012
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